UK HIV Vaccine Consortium Orders Candidate Genes from Geneart

Similar constructs already in Phase I/II trials through EuroVacc.!--h2>

The UK HIV Vaccine Consortium (UK HCV) awarded Geneart a contract to design and produce two DNA vaccine candidates with a view to future clinical trials. The new candidates will be based on the same concept as two HIV protein gene constructs developed by Geneart and the University of Regensburg’s (Germany) Institute of Medical Microbiology and Hygiene, which are already undergoing Phase I/II development by way of the EU-funded EuroVacc initiative. Geneart said the constructs requested by the UK HCV will be based on a different HIV isolate to the EuroVacc candidates.

The UK HCV agreement comes just a couple of weeks after Geneart announced a major order from the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Molecular Genetics for genes and gene variants to support ‘Mutanom–Systems Biology of Genetic Diseases,’ a collaborative research project funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research. The expected order for the Mutanom project will be around €300,000, according to Geneart.

Geneart specializes in the design, optimization, and production of synthetic genes. The company maintains its GeneOptimizer® software uses an evolutionary approach to generate up to 500,000 optimized variants of a target sequence. Final selected sequences are then produced using Geneart’s nano-scale, high-throughput GeneAssembler® technology platform. The company has DIN EN ISO 9001:2000 certification for its production process.

The UK HIV Vaccine Consortium (UK HVC) is five-year, Wellcome Trust Strategic Award established in April 2008. The project aims to study diverse potential HIV vaccine constructs and immunization strategies. It involves researchers at Imperial College London, the Medical Research Council, Royal Holloway (University of London), St George's University, London, the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), and The Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine (University of Oxford).